


Almost Kiss, Always Kill

by Shatteeran



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Almost Kiss, Angst, Blood, Blood and Violence, Curses, Declarations Of Love, M/M, Tara Is A Bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 20:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15493572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteeran/pseuds/Shatteeran
Summary: When you're the hero, before the happy ending, there's the 'almost kiss' scene, interrupted. But Theo Raeken is no hero and this is not what this story is about.





	Almost Kiss, Always Kill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TrashWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashWrites/gifts).



> For Sab, who demanded the following:
> 
> 1\. A story with *almost* in the title;  
> 2\. A character who goes through a life of "almosts";  
> 3\. A sad development;  
> 4\. My heart (here it is, freshly torn out, still warm and bleeding).
> 
> I did my best to deliver. In due time.

They should know better than to rile me up. But the one good thing about bad guys is that they never seem to learn. They can’t help themselves; they just have to taunt the poor newly-bitten beta with spades, stones, hexes… They love making me suffer, they like making me angry. 

Angry means strong… 

The witch should have killed me on the spot. But instead, no, she had to drug me and drag me to an abandoned hangar. She had to chain me to a rusted chair and tattoo my chest and arms with a blade dipped in a wolfsbane-based mixture. She had to cackle ominously while I screamed and screamed as her drawing burned through my skin and penetrated my flesh. 

I specifically warned her not to piss me off. I told her that she had to learn from History or she would be cursed to repeat it. She had laughed. “Amulet”, she had said eventually after her sinister snicker had died down. The witch hadn’t listened, she hadn’t learned. And now she was lying at my feet in a puddle of her own blood. Alive but unconscious. Because she thought torturing me would pass the time…

Theo would finish her on the spot. Or, more specifically, he would talk a whole lot about it. But the quote - Chimera of Death – unquote has a problem with follow-through. Theo fucking Raeken plans. He plots. He schemes. He makes empty threats and raises his eyebrows and smiles cockily. He defies the whole world to unnerve him with steely green eyes. But he never goes the last mile. 

A cloud obscures the afternoon sun outside. The metallic grey hangar grows colder and more unhospitable by the second. The heavy atmosphere chases away the creeping grin on my lips. I strain my hearing but cannot pick up any trace of commotion outside. We are alone, my prey and me. I have plenty of time left to call for reinforcements: we can figure out together what to do with her.

I let my thumb wander and text Theo my location. Maybe because my thoughts were already on him when I pulled my phone out. He is constantly speaking in my head these days, condescending tone and eye-rolling snark. I truly hate the bastard. I tell myself I chose him because he makes a better fighter than Corey and Mason together. The unconscious body of the witch thrown haphazardly on the concrete mocks my dishonesty. The stale air reeks of iron and ice and dust. A doubt prickles at the back of my mind. I wish he’d be here already.

“The sun, the moon, the truth”, I breathe out, forcing my claws back into generic, and possibly bitten, nails.

I wish he’d be here already still. Not that I need his help or anything. But I could use his natural excess of confidence. I do not yet know how to dispose of a body. An alive body. I’m not sure I ever want to learn, either. But Theo will have a plan. He will ridicule me for not having thought about it before and on my own. I will punch his pretty face. His detestable demeanor will diffuse the tension in my shoulders. His taunting words will unclench my jaw. His presence will get me out of my own head. 

“The sun, the moon, the truth.”

The truth? The truth is that our former enemy is useless. Mostly harmless even, in the most pathetic sort of way. Taking out the Pack from within, hurting us through our bonds and mistrusts… should have been a genius plan. Getting me to maim and weaken Scott until the True Alpha could be killed should have worked. But Theo never crosses the finish line. My Alpha is alive and well and studying at Berkeley with his girlfriend? Werecoyote beta? Best friend’s ex? … He is safe and sound and happy with Malia. Our Pack has grown stronger than ever. And Theo returned exactly where it all started: more or less alone, disturbingly powerful but not enough to be self-sufficient, not quite dead, not quite comfortable amongst the living. He never wins, never loses… he is stuck in the ever-depressing limbo of broken dreams and half-formed what ifs.

I wonder if he has noticed this pattern about himself. Maybe this very awareness causes him to refuse my mother’s invitation to spend the night every time she bullies her into coming over for dinner. But he would rather sleep in his truck, his sorry approximation of a home. Caring about him makes me sick to my stomach.

“The sun, the moon, the truth.”

Apprehension weighs heavily on my shoulders. I keep surveying the disarticulated witch a couple feet away from me. My unease increases, as if I’m forgetting something. Something urgent. Something terrible. A small piece of the puzzle which could break the whole picture back into shards if dropped at the right time, at the wrong place. I exhale loudly. What will go wrong? What are you forgetting, Liam?

“LIAM!”

The shifted chimera burst through the entrance of the hangar, irises glowing gold, fangs a bit thinner and pointier than mine. He is a sight for sore eyes. Good thing I never let weariness get to me, or his arrival would please me immensely. That would all around be inconvenient. 

“I’m alright, Theo! The threat has been dealt with”, I say to calm him down, stepping outside to draw his attention to the witch laying behind me.

He cocks his head, the paradigm of the confused puppy. More preoccupying, he frowns as if he cannot properly understand me. He roars.

“Don’t lie to me, bitch! I hear two heartbeats. He’s alive!”

“What?” I reply. “Who?”

He growls. Eyes widened by the surprise, I feel my legs shake, frozen by two contradictory orders. In any other situation, I would stand my ground. Right now, I want nothing more than to put as much space in between us as possible. But I just stare on wobbly knees at Theo charges.

My survival instinct eventually jumps my limbs into reaction. I block the first lateral swipe of his right clawed-hand with my left forearm, the knocking sound of our wrists colliding bounce back against the metallic walls around us, disorienting our improved hearing. Twisting my waist to my left, I feel the knuckles of his remaining hand graze against my right hip. Using his momentum, I pivot and press a human hand between his shoulders, projecting him towards the body of his real enemy. By the time he regains his balance and turns a hateful face towards me, I have rearranged my posture into a defensive stance.

“Theo! It’s me! What are you doing?” I scream at him, but the anguish has settled comfortably. The cool snake of fear is already crawling down my back. The incapacitating venom spreads ice in my veins.

“What have you done to him?” the werecoyote spits. He spares a glance at the body behind him then, and the real objective of his protective crouch dawns on me. He is trying to rescue her.

For the first time, I understand Scott’s feeling of loss and terror when I barreled into him in the library two years ago. I have yet to receive a single blow from the fight to come but inside, the rough edges of my broken heart pierce into my lungs, disturbing my respiration. I’m bleeding internally, metaphorically. I’m hurting. 

“Theo”, I try again but my voice has been torn into shreds and I struggle to get the words out over the lump in my throat. “It’s me, it’s Liam. I’m fine. I’m here. It’s not me over there. There’s no need to fight.”

But I can tell from the cold disgust in his eyes and the glistening white of bared teeth that my attempts are not reaching him. I don’t know what he sees, what he hears, but yelling and begging will not be enough to break the illusion. 

Meanwhile, the way he flexes his thighs forecasts the imminence of another onslaught. He charges again, more animal than man this time, his crouch meaning he will most likely aim between my crotch and my knees. I ignore the single tear rolling on my cheek as I pop my own claws out and imitates his stance, readying myself for impact.

The brutality of the shock the second time should not have surprised me. Theo is angry. Mad even. Angry means strong… And there’s no spark of furor left in me to fight his with. I parry his first two strikes, freeing just enough space between his arms to knee him in the stomach. He recovers far too quickly and breaks my nose with his forehead. He snickers gleefully as my blood splatters on his cheek. He doesn’t bother wiping it. A quick brush with the back of my thumb cleans my unnaturally red lip. A flick of my wrist sends most of the warm fluid on the floor. 

But my opponent’s ruthlessness pays in this situation. He thrusts his right hand vertically, towards my throat, barely giving me time for a quick dodge. The uncoordinated movement gives him access to my chest. His claws dig and plow my skin on their way up. More of my blood meets the concrete. The drip sickeningly covers every other sound. 

I stagger backwards, take in the sight of my fierce opponent with glassy eyes. I don’t even want to know if my eyes are leaking pain or sadness. Theo is breathing heavily in front of me, obviously giving it his all, going systematically for the killing blow. 

I speak again, try to reason with the boy I have learned to trust. The meaning doesn’t matter. Maybe none of it makes sense anyway. Maybe it’s about getting more time. But my injuries aren’t healing as fast as they should… Knowing why doesn’t help. 

I reach, deep and deeper, in the confines of my mind, on the ridge of the claw marks on my skin, on the stinging sensation of my exposed flesh, for that explosive rage I have been battling down for as long as I remember. I yearn for the reassuring burn of my lost fire fueling my strength. I try to get angry. Angry means strong.

With a hoarse shout, I throw the sole of my right sneaker against his ribs. Two of them crack under my assault. But Theo barely flinches. He grabs my foot with two hands and twists violently, breaking my ankle with a twisted grin. The chimera pushes me, and I topple backwards, my back flat on the cold concrete.

He immediately jumps on top of me, his knees viciously pressing against my collarbones. A sharp, warm pain invades my left side. I gasp for air but my mouth fills with the taste of the blood running from my nose.

“Theo…”

I notice with stupor that he is looking at me with his human face. No sideburns. No pointy-shaped ears. Nothing but the green color of hope in his still despising eyes. He proceeds to pummel my face with his equally human fists.

“That’s what you get, bitch! No one hurts Liam! No one punches Liam! But me! No one touches Liam but me!”

I cover my head as best as I can, but even to me, my movements lack precision and rigidity. My hands are non-responsive. All my primary body functions are shutting down, one after the next; yet Theo’s possessiveness pumps some adrenaline in my addled brain. 

“What?” I croak.  
“He’s mine!” Theo chants in response, marking each of his declaration with another blow on my face. “Mine to punch! Mine to touch! Mine to protect! Mine to save! Mine to love!”

The surprise strikes like lightning, seize all my limbs. It’s with a newborn smile at the corner of my slightly parted lips and happiness-imbued, wide-open eyes, that I welcome Theo’s fist in my ribcage. If a cry escapes my trachea, the static in my ears drown it completely. Or maybe the world has quieted down in reverence of the boy’s confession. The boy, still kneeling above me, whose entire body shudders as if he has just awoken from a nightmare, whose face clears up, whose head shakes to get rid of his remaining confusion, whose eyes warm up as they meet mine, filled with a tenderness I never knew him capable of – Theo Raeken, the boy who is slowly ending my life.  
The illusion shatters. And my attacker only now discovers the poor state his onslaught left me in. Next to me, movement catches my eye. The witch stirs. Panic rises in my chest; the resulting sharp pain robs me temporarily of my capacity to speak, to think. To breathe. My anguish must darken my features or transpire somehow, because the chimera glances in her direction. His shoulders turn unconsciously to follow the direction of his eyes; his wrist pulls at the gaping hole in my chest, tears a pleading sob out of me. He focuses back on me then. I watch the emotions fleet on his face: the green pendulums going haywire with confusion in his orbits, as he finally takes in the whole damage, the aggressive curve of his worried eyebrows, the tension and anger seeping in his perfectly square-shaped jaw, the guilty quiver of his lower lip. Unshed tears pool in his eyes, blurry the spots of colors in his irises. I realize I’m crying. He snatches his hand out of my chest cavity. I can tell he didn’t act out of his own volition but out of shock. The reflex hurts all the same. I feel my lips part around a silent shout. Not enough strength to produce sound. 

Warm drops fall on my cheeks; but I can no longer identify whether they’re liquid sadness or liquid life, if they’d taste like salt or iron. Above me, Theo stares at his limb like it betrayed him, like a stranger would observe another, rather unpleasant, individual. Goosebumps break on my skin at the sight of his obvious disdain and detachment; I assumed I’d never witness this expression ever again. Maybe I’m cold from the concrete ground under my back; shouldn’t it be warming up with my body heat? Shivering triggers waves of pain, they run from my heart, down my limbs, up my neck, each surge a little more violent than the previous one. A little more incapacitating. 

A few feet away, the witch got up, towers over us, a distorted grin of malice stretching her pale thing lips. 

“Witch… Amulet…”, I warn Theo with the last bit of information I can grace him with. On his face, understanding clears all marks of the previous mix of feelings. Stupor takes place instead. And hatred. He recognizes her. He knows her.   
“Not amulet”, he whispers for my benefit. “Amoleto.”

I don’t grasp the meaning of his words. I try. I try hard to listen to these last words he will ever say to me. The witch cackles; her laugh, clinking and chilling, reminds me of ice cubes hitting and breaking against glass. 

“Oh, Theo!”, she exclaims, falseness and cruelty defusing the cheerfulness in her tone. “I didn’t think you’d pick it up this fast. You’ve grown!”

I no longer see her. I report all of my attention to the boy above me. He said he loved me, I remember belatedly. No trace of affection remains in his attitude now. Only a furor fueled by unfiltered fear. The temperature keeps on dropping in the hangar. I wish Theo would touch me again, envelop me in his warmth. I hold on. I don’t want to leave him alone with her. 

“The Death By Love curse is one of your classic moves. Of course I’d study it”, he spits back.

His focus reverts back to me then, a question hidden behind the mask he wears more often than not. I blink. Blink up and struggle to maintain the silent dialog. I never dreamed I would enjoy watching him watching me this much. I pour all that’s left of my slow-beating heart in our ultimate stare-down contest. 

“Yes”, I yell in my thoughts. “I love you. God I love you. How did I not notice before?”

This time I know for certain his tears are wetting my forehead, I spot as clear as day the tracks they dig on his cheeks. 

“You cheated, Tara”, he speaks again, but his voice is hollow and neutral where it overflowed with anger and fright before.   
“Your sister?” I ask, but an inconsistent gargle leaves my sore mouth instead. I cough more blood, it spills on my chin and neck, taints the collar of my shirt, mixes with the sweat there. The sensation would nauseate me if I wasn’t feeling this bad already, cold and pain by now the only indications of where my body starts and ends.   
“I never had a sister”, Theo murmurs to me, eventually. Lovingly. “Why aren’t you healing, Liam?” he wonders. “I can’t take your pain unless you start healing.”

He covers his distress with a coaxing tone. It soothes me. I close my eyes. I distantly notice that the witch isn’t attacking. It doesn’t baffle me as much as it should. I’m not scared. Long and thin fingers settle around my hand. Finally. Touch me, Theo.

“Maybe this will help”, he adds, determination battling sorrow in his inflexion.

I suddenly open my eyelids, beg him with glassy eyes not to go through with his idea, to accept my fate. A second too late apparently. I fail, and he breaks my wrist all the same. I arch my back automatically, but my brain is already overthrown by so much pain that the new injury barely registers. I moan, though, and the sudden movement wrings another coughing fit out of me. I must be covered in blood. I feel sweaty and cold and the iciness I’m laying upon claws at my shoulder blades. My breathing sounds erratic and weak even to my own ears. Above me, Theo’s face contorts into the ugly grimace of loss. A hoarse howl scraps his vocal chords, morphing into a litany of “Liam”s and “I’m sorry”s and “Please”s. I want to respond to every one of his plea, to tell him it’s okay. But I can’t. And it’s not. 

“You bitch!” he finally yells, standing to face our enemy. “You’ve had your revenge! I’ve lived with your curse for ten years! Ten fucking years of almost! Of never quite succeeding nor quite belonging…”  
“Yes”, her icy voice interrupts, still completely unaffected. “What a joy it has been to observe your struggles! Poor little brother Theo. Almost powerful. Almost a successful experiment. Almost a tool for the Dread Doctors, just to be dropped for a better one. Almost a leader, almost a loner. Almost an ally to the Pack you just can’t stop abandoning. Almost a friend to a group of people who loathe you, who can’t stand you and stay near you all the same. Watching you fail and fail and fail and fail. Over and over again. It was like tearing your heart out each and every time. What a wonderful decade we spent together, didn’t we?”

The angle prevents me from seeing them properly. I expect Theo’s voice to boom with resentment. The discovery of his agony over the past ten years leaves me horrified and exasperated. The curse probably prevented him to seek help, to receive charity and pity: no wonder he associated himself with the Dread Doctors. The Pack couldn’t have done anything to help him. I couldn’t have. The dices were loaded from the start. If only I could stand, I would rip her throat out. The urge to kill and maim warm my weary bones. The indignation floods my brain and temporarily flushes a bit of pain out of my system. I’m floating on a crimson cloud of rage. But Tara’s taunts are met with a resigned silence. She pushes. 

“Wanna know the best part?” she asks. “You never quite grasped how my Almost curse changed you as well. Never a real desire to hold onto, never a real connection to another human being – or supernatural for that matter. Almost empathetic, but not enough to prevent you to murder your followers. But not quite merciless either, just what was required to plague you with doubt and remorse and nightmares in the dark of the night. You convinced yourself you were incapable of loyalty, of friendship, of love – and unworthy of them because of it. And you never even suspected the reason why.”

Tara’s declaration ends on a joyful snicker. But Theo uses this opportunity to speak. He is bargaining. For my life. Hope dissipates the light feeling which had taken over my limbs. Pain returns. I attempt to hear the remainder of the conversation, but tiredness and cold are relentlessly pulling me under. The copper scent of blood permeates the air around me, a bubble of death sneakily closing in around me, chocking me… Now that Theo is giving me a chance to survive, my situation appears more desperate, frightening, unbearable than ever before. 

“But Liam did fall in love with me”, Theo counters. “You said it would break the Almost curse. You cheated by casting Amoleto on him. You used the very thing that was supposed to break my curse to curse him… But he’s got nothing to do with this. With us. Let him walk away from this and leave the Almost curse on me!”  
“I don’t cheat. I make the rules!”, she suddenly yells.   
“The curse should have been broken”, Theo shoots back. “Then why did I almost save him? Why is he still dying? The curse is supposed to be broken. Your word binds you. Leave the curse on me, that’s fine, but save him!” he argues, the plea shining through his façade. 

Tara sighs. He won. I’ll live. And we will figure out a way to overcome this obstacle together. After I kiss him senseless. For hours. I never realized how much I wanted his lips on mine until now. Maybe that’s what all the punching was about. But soon, I promise him in my mind. 

“Silly boy!” the witch comments after a beat, fake pity extinguishing the rising hope flickering in my heart. “Your willingness to sacrifice yourself, to spend the rest of your life with my spell weighing heavily on your frail shoulders, what does it tell you?”  
“No…”, Theo lets out, disbelief obvious in his tone.  
“Yes”, she exults. “You love him. Not a little bit, not almost. You’re one hundred per cent, completely, absolutely, irrevocably in love with him. Like he loves you. My curse is broken.”  
“Then why did I only almost save him?”  
“It’s a matter of perspective, little brother. He never needed to be saved, did he? He had won when you arrived, after all… But you! You killed him. All on your own… Your first undisputed success in ten long years. I don’t have the heart to take that away from you!”

Theo rushes back to kneel at my side then. He takes my unbroken hand in his, presses it against his cheek. His fingers slowly creep around my collarbone, caress the hair on my nape. I don’t need to see the black veins coloring his arm to find he is taking my pain away. Letting me go. I do the same. I stare up at his unfocused face, bathed with fresh tears, a baptism of his love raining on me. I enjoy the feeling, free of the pain coursing through my body. 

“Like I said”, Tara chimes in again. “My curse is broken, Theo. You’re free.”

I close my eyes, willing to drown the sound of her voice. I focus on Theo’s warmth where my skin touches his, on his reassuring presence showering me with affection. I feel it pouring from him, embracing me, cajoling me. I hear the beat of his heart, it pulses against the hand he is holding against his cheek, vibrates up my heavy arm, reaches through the hole above my stomach, and resonates with mine. Even the copper scent recedes, replaced with the distinct odor of sea salt, of lacrosse jerseys after an intense training session, of heated mock arguments on the passenger seat of a speeding truck. It smells like unsaid truths in a temporarily blocked elevator. Everything is Theo and all I need is a taste. One taste and I won’t ever ask for anything else. One kiss, I think, and we’ll let that elevator resume its course. Maybe I could ask this time, maybe Theo won’t mind the blood painting my lips. 

I fight to open my eyelids. I plant my eyes into shiny rings of green. He smiles. Adoringly. Plumped lips. My mouth parts around the question. And I…

**Author's Note:**

> I actually merged an idea I had for another story in this, but they weaved so well together...  
> The Death By Love curse's name actually comes from Latin: "Amo" means "I love" and "Leto" means "I perish".
> 
> I don't think I can ever write Angst ever again...


End file.
